It's a story about three friends winning a billion-dollar lottery. Maybe I can convince these ladies that I'm a long -lost friend:) Leila, Molly, and JJ, were once the best of friends. They were all the same age, and all born in the month of September. They haven’t seen much of each other since college, but they decide it’s been long enough and make plans to celebrate their 40th Birthdays together in Las Vegas. The three friends buy a lottery ticket carefully picking numbers that mean things to each of them. Lightning strikes and their winning numbers are pulled and WOW...they have won a BILLION dollars. They then make a decision to contact a wealth management agency. The Los Angeles agency has the cute name... "Windfall". "Windfall" is run by Shea Daniels who promises to make the transition easier for all of them. They meet Shea at her property in Los Angeles. "Windfall" is a beautiful place with a huge waterfront mansion and terrific views. However, the ladies hear that many people say the property is haunted by a famous actress who mysteriously disappeared, and no one knows what happened to her...and now it seems like it may just happen again. I have read this author's many other books and always found them more than engaging. This story about three old friends, an unexpected windfall, a haunted mansion was right up there with the rest of her books. I was impressed with how Ms. Staub juggled two very key questions at the heart of this story. How would a sudden windfall change your life, and how well do you really know your friends? These women are hiding huge secrets that have a significant impact once they are unveiled. I hope the trend of this book and her. many others continue for many more years. ( )

3 college friends, now 40, all get together on milestone birthdays, but have been drifting apart over the years. However, they did go to Las Vegas together. Now, a week later, Leila calls Molly and JJ, the ticket they purchased is the winning lottery ticket and the jackpot is $1 Billion. She suggests that they go to CA to meet with Shea, a specialist who handles high income windfalls.
The estate, Windfall, is an estate whose owner disappeared years earlier. The estate is cut off due to a storm. The friends, the "September Girls" feel apprehensive. A podcaster is investigating the disappearance. Now, one of the friends is missing, and she has the ticket! Do they really know each other after seeing each other sporadically over 20 years? A bit of a spooky vibe. ( )

Three college best friends decided to go to Las Vegas together for their 40th birthday. Since they didn't do any good at the slot machines, they decided to buy a lottery ticket together as they were leaving to go home. They are thrilled when they find out that their ticket won a billion dollars in the lottery. One of the women decided that they should turn to Shea Daniels, a “sudden wealth manager,” who promises to guide them through the pitfalls of having more money than they’d ever imagined. Shea invites them to her huge home in California to talk about their new wealth. When they get there, they find that the California mansion is surrounded by smoke due to wildfires, there is no cell coverage and they are basically shut off from the outside world. And then one of the women disappears -- the woman who was holding the lottery ticket -- did she run off with the ticket so she wouldn't have to share the money or did something happen to her in the haunted mansion? Years before, a famous movie star had disappeared from the mansion - was the house haunted or was there a predator lurking in the smoke?

Winning the lottery was the basic premise of the story but really wasn't the main plot line. More important was the friendship between the three very different women. They had been best friends in college and even referred to themselves as the September Girls with matching necklaces. Even though they were friends, they all had lots of disappointments in their lives and didn't share many parts of their lives with each other always wanting to appear that their lives were happy.

The last half of the book was very exciting as everyone was looking for the missing woman as the wildfires got closer to the mansion. My real problem with the book is that I didn't like or connect with any of the three women. I sure wouldn't want to be friends with any of the three. What definitely made the book worth reading was the setting at the mansion in California covered with smoke from nearby wildfires and having no way to communicate with the outside world due to lack of cell coverage. For me, that's what made this a real page turner that had a surprising ending! ( )